me
basis in fact. At any rate they deserve notice, if only that they may be
contradicted by competent witnesses, if they are incorrect.

In the Inchalachee tribe, according to Mr Mathews, descent of the
classes is reckoned through females. In the place of the arrangement
shown in Table I a, he gives the order 3, 4, 8, 7; 6, 5, 1, 2[202]. Any
man of the first moiety may marry any woman of the second, though
certain marriages are normal and one of the remainder more usual than
the others. The effect of these rules is to make it possible for a man
to marry any woman of his own generation, even if she be of his own
class. This is precisely the same as the case reported from the
Kamilaroi by Dr Howitt, if we may take it that in the latter case the
normal marriages are found side by side with the anomalous ones.

In the Inchalachee marriages the children, as in the Warramunga cases of
Spencer and Gillen, take the class which they would have had if the
woman had taken her normal spouse. On this Mr Mathews relies for the
statement that descent is reckoned in the female line in this tribe.
But, as we have seen, such a view is erroneous as regards the
Warramunga, among whom anomalous marriages also occur; it is therefore
by no means clear that the Inchalachee are matrilineal. We have even
more reason to doubt his view as to the Binbinga, for whom we have the
evidence of Spencer and Gillen.

Mr Mathews also reports among the Wiradjeri marriages resembling in many
respects those mentioned above from the Wailwun tribe[203]. The table
does not seem to be complete; it is therefore useless to enquire on what
principle these marriages are arranged. There seems, however, no reason
to doubt the substantial accuracy of the information.

More revolutionary is the statement that these cross-class marriages are
based on an actual kinship organisation, to which Mr Mathews gives the
name of "blood" (Table III, p. 50)[204].

Running across the phratries and classes are divisions known as
Gwaigullean and Gwaimudthen, Muggulu and Bumbirra, etc., which have the
meaning of "sluggish" and "swift" blood respectively. The bloods again
are sometimes subdivided. In the Ngeumba tribe Gwaimudthen is divided
into nhurai (butt) and wangue (middle), while Gwaigulir is equivalent to
winggo (top). These names refer to different portions of the shadow of a
tree and refer to the positions taken up in camping by the persons
belonging to the different "bloods"